Tripe - Callos

[Bob]

GRANDMA SENA'S CALLOS--TRIPE


6 pig's feet
4 pounds tripe
5 bay leaves
15 whole cloves of garlic
6 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 large onion chopped
3 large can tomato puree
red wine
1 whole can pimiento, cut into small pieces
red pepper
2 pounds ham, cut into chunks
6 chorizos, cooked and sliced


DAY ONE:
Clean the pig's feet as needed. Boil the pig's feet until they start to fall apart. Save the water, skimming off the foam as they cook. Cooking can take up to 3 hours. Drain, cool, and set aside feet.

Wash tripe, remove and discard fat, and cut into pieces about 5 inches square. Boil in water with cloves and bay leaves until very tender, about 3 hours. Drain and let cool. Cut into tiny cubes.

DAY TWO:
Remove bones from pig's feet. Cut into small pieces, using all parts of the feet (fat, skin, etc.). Be sure to remove all small pieces of bone.

Brown garlic in oil, and remove from the oil with a slotted spoon. Add diced onion and cook until transparent. Add tomato puree, pimientos, and about 1 tablespoon sugar. Simmer for about 5 minutes.

Add tripe and pig's feet, ham, chorizos, paprika, wine, red pepper. Simmer for 10 minutes, watching carefully that it does not burn. Add water from the pig's feet gradually, until the desired consistency has been achieved. Put in a 350 oven and bake for 1 hour. Taste and correct seasoning.

This thickens like jello when cool, so don't pour the leftover pig's feet water down the drain.

[Maestro Tomberi]

I'd like to point several things about this recipee people might see interesting (despite attempting a necro-threading ), and since it's also one of my favourite dishes I didn't want to leave the chance .

- The size of the tripe squares may vary a lot depending in the county you go. The more you move to the south, the bigger they are.

-When we want to put the triped and feet to boil it's good to add a sprinkle of vinegar to the water. It helps a lot to whiten up the tripes.

-Notice smell cloves are VERY powerful. As a personal taste, 15 of them are just too much. Altough haven't ever used any, 3 of them would be enough and pretty welcome.

-The fashion normally is to make them with "quite personality". This means, quite hot. My advice here is that if people likes to put chili here, then do it (since a bit of it compliments it a whole lot), and if not, then not .

-Traditionally the oven is not used in order to finish the tripes. Instead, the pot remains boiling in the fire.

...and of course, serve them very hot .

[Bob]

You are quite right about the cloves. I just noticed the error in my recipe and corrected it by substituting "cloves of garlic" for "cloves." unfortunately, tripe had become difficult to find here in New England.